The Court of Appeal of Athens ruled the deletion penalties imposed by the ESIEA Disciplinary Council on the journalists to be definitively invalid Ari Portosalte, Vasilis Chiotis and Noti Papadopoulos because they worked on a strike day in June 2021.

In a historic and now final decision, which overturns the facts in the operation of disciplinary councils, the Court of Appeal of Athens validated the decision issued by the Court of First Instance of Athens in 2022, underlining that the participation of workers in a strike is a right and not an obligation, adding that the imposition of penalties on an employee who wishes to work on a strike day, violates Article 25 of the Constitution as well as several provisions of the Civil Code.

The three journalists of SKAI appealed to the Court of First Instance of Athens in 2021, when the Disciplinary Council of ESIEA imposed on them the penalty of permanent deletion for Ari Portosalte and the six-month temporary deletion for him Vasilis Chiotis and the Noti Papadopoulosbecause they normally did their show on June 10, 2021, while ESIEA had declared a strike.

The three journalists had declared at the time that instead of the strike, they were choosing to inform the public about the major events of the time, after the refusal of ESIEA to allow the transmission of short news bulletins.

The Court of First Instance of Athens ruled in his favor, ordering the annulment of their deletions, but ESIEA appealed to the Athens Court of Appeal, defending its right to delete its members when they wish to work on a strike day.

With the decision of the Athens Court of Appeal, the decision of the Court of First Instance is confirmed and ESIEA’s appeal is rejected. And in fact with reasoning that now definitively establishes that the workers’ unions and their trade union bodies are not entitled to impose disciplinary penalties on anyone who wishes to work on a strike day.

As the three separate decisions of the Court of Appeal issued for the three journalists of SKAI specifically state, “the disciplinary decision of deletions is contrary to article 25 paragraph 3 of the Constitution and articles 281 and 174 of the Civil Code, it is illegal and therefore voidable”.

At the same time, it is pointed out that the Constitution as well as specific legislative regulations protect the employee’s right to work on a strike day declared by their trade union.

And that the journalists “correctly determined in this particular case that the citizens’ right to information through their own work took precedence over their obligation to participate in the particular strike”.

With a final decision of the appellate court, the accusation of the striker is definitively dismissed, when it concerns journalists who protect the citizens’ right to information.